I love the idea of a variation on the mom's name for a daughter--or for a son, for that matter. Mom Nicole might name her daughter Collette or Nicia, or her son Nicholas or Colin. In my family, we have done same initials a time or two (by accident, and once by design). I think I might actually prefer doing the variation.

Probably not, but I do love several "L" names for girls that are not terribly dissimilar from my fn. I feel that the mother is best honored with a middle name; I've got a cousin whose middle is her mother's first name, and as she's the only daughter it's kind of sweet.

I think it's sweet & don't see it as conceited. I don't have plans to do it myself but I do think it's cute and the Alice/Allison example works well. They both feel like their own name so it doesn't seem confusing to me.

My husband isn't into Juniors or shared names which makes me sad- he's Maksim or Maxim which I think is great and would love to use...but sadly we won't!

I think it probably depends on how close the names are to each other - i.e. Emily and Emeline. Constant confusion would ensue on the phone. Alice and Alison would be a little problematic. Something like Mary and Maura would be less confusing. Katherine and Katrina would be fine. Hopefully that makes sense.